Announcements

The Inaugural Service for the new Freelton Strabane United Church will be on November 6th at 10:30 with the Rev Jane Wyllie as our guest preacher. There will be a pot luck lunch to follow. 

Mark the date and hang out the holly it’s a

Celebration:

Seasonal Lunch Craft and Bake sale

at the new Freelton Strabane United Church event

 November 26 8 – 1pm

The Implementation Committee will be meeting 7pm on November 3 at Freetlon. 

The beginning of the new journey is about to begin, which means the committees will need to meet. 

We are proposing

Worship Committee November 7 7p at the Manse

Christian Education  and outreach November 8 7pm at the manse.

Property Committee November 9^th 7pm at the Church

Finance Committee 15 7pm at the Church 

Please let Rev Will know if these dates work. 

 Rev Will is always Available for calls. If you find you need to talk or need something please don’t hesitate to call the Manse. 

Consider PAR as a means to support the Church   

 Call To Worship

One: From before the beginning, and beyond the end you are our God, the God who claims us as yours.

All: you meet all our endings with new beginning.

One: We may break our promises and abandon our covenants but

All: You meet all our endings with a new beginning.

One: Stir in us a new ambition, God, to enter every door you open to us, for

All you meet all our endings with a new beginning.

One from before the beginning, and beyond the end, you are our God.

All We delight to worship you. 

Lighting the candles of our journey. 

From God, in Christ, through the action of the Holy Spirit, the ancestors of the Strabane community came together to form first Nairn Presbyterian Church and in time to come to be known as Strabane Presbyterian Church and now is known as Strabane United Church    we light this candle to honour the Ancestors. 

All: We light this candle rejoicing in all the time we have gathered around tables, served, and shared meals. We humbly give thanks for all the times we have been able to extend outreach into the community serving God. 

One: We light this candle for the how the word of God has be proclaimed in this place. How the teachings of Christ have been illuminated and shared.  

All We offer praise and thanksgiving for times we have come together as a community of faith to witness and commit our support to children and adults as they begin and continue their faith journey through the sacrament of Baptism.  

 One: We give thanks for all times we have come to the table of the Lord to celebrate the blessed gift of the Sacrament of Communion. Renewing our faith, knowing Christ’s presence in a most sacred moment. 

All: We light this Candle for all those moments we have be comforted in the dark moments of our grief. We are grateful that we as a community of faith have been able to gather to offer comfort for those that grieving.

One: We give thanks for those times we have gathered to witness the commitment and joy of a new marriage.  We humbly give thanks that we have been able to be a part of the milestone moments in the lives of those who have looked to this as their faith community. 

All: In the light of God’s love, strengthened in faith by Christ and inspired by the Holy Spirit honour who we are. 

We remember when because our story lives on in our telling of it and now we have been called just like those early folk to let the Spirit move us forward along a new road. Towards a new beginning and a new name.  

The Indigenous people use an oral memory they tell the stories of their ancestors.  They believe what is held in the mouth is remembered.   Our own faith story in the beginning was all oral. It took a couple hundred years before people started to write the story of Jesus. 

Think on a moment of being with family and sharing stories and remembrances.   

There is a fine line about living in the past and remembering the past.    Our history is that which moves us forward. 

I am always rather nostalgic about this passage. It is the passage that I had to write my very first sermon on to be graded.  I had to deliver it in front of the class.   It is amazing what you can create when you have three weeks to write a sermon. 

The opening story I wrote is called a journey home.  It is set in the early 1900;s and is about a Women Grace who wants to go back to her old home town.   

 The journey back takes us to her old home village.  The sun streams into the clearing while the cool canopy of the sky dips its finger into the soft swells of the ocean the gras has been left to its own and ripples like the sea in the wind creating a hushed whispers. There it stand, a tired frame, stoically holding dark sorrowful windows , the clapboard of the old church is now withered grey freckled with spots of former paint. .a stately steeple lifts high the cross. 

I go on to write how Grace can hear the voices of memories of all the touch stone moments of times spent here.  In the end she tells her husband  you can’t go back but you can remember and her husband smiles and says They will always be with us. 

And Jesus in an off hand way says “and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

I heard a saying once that as long as our name is spoken, as long as our story is told we cannot die.  Times change,   

There is no going back. History is history,  I think the scripture reminds us that we must take that History, hold it and use it to move forward.   To strive in answering our call to be followers of Christ and living good to seek justice and resist evil.    May we remember an honour those that have served the congregation so well .  May we hold Jesus’s words in our mouth. For they are like angels. They are God’s Children, since they are Children of the resurrection.   We are God’s children and we will tell our story and hold the stores of our God in Christ in our mouth our History, our hope, our tomorrow. Like Rev Jamie said last week we are about to be surprised and all the emotions you can have in being surprised.  Our God is a god of surprises.  The one thing that is not a surprise is that God is with us. Next week we truly begin a whole new chapter in the life of the people of faith that found there way up that little country road 175 years and since then we have such a hope we will act with great boldness to live our discipleship with integrity and grace.   For in God and all the Saints of Strabane United Church we will create a beautiful new story that shall proclaim to generations yet to come that  we are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Offering

We give thee but thy own.   The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work.   Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse.   Let us make our offering and give thanks.       

  One: Praise God who from all Blessing flow

   Prayer     Blessed God for all times you have been the God who has given to us. Here in this time we bring you our gifts and offer the to you for the continued work of your Church in all places and times. Amen.                                   

  Honouring our journey

One: The Lord is with You.

All: And also with you

One; Take heart for you are not alone.

 All: Within our hearts we know we are not alone, therefore we are able to set forward in faith.   

One : For all things there is a time, a time for all things under heaven.   We also know that a grain of wheat must fall to the ground in order to grow. So too must we all the Holy Spirit to plant us in our new space so that we may continue to grow in new and different ways.

The light of God in Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit that gathered the ancestors of  Strabane United Church can never be extinguished. That light burns with in each of us and our collective memory . Who we have been and will be as a community of faith will continue to shine in us  as a community of faith that loves and honours God working towards the coming of God’s Kingdom  

All: We take the light of the Ancestors of  Strabane United Church  and add it to the light of Christ to move us forward. 

One May God guide our way 

All: We take the light of Fellowship and Service through outreach and add them to the light of Christ to move us forward.

One:  May God guide our way

All: We take the light of Sacraments of Communion and Baptism and the proclamation of the Gospels of Christ and add it to the light of Christ to move us forward

One:  May God guide our way

All: We take the light of the milestones that have been observed in this place Funeral and Weddings and add them to the light of Christ to move us Forward. 

One : May God guide our way.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life,  and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

From the Light of Christ, we light this, Candle. In it burns the heart of who we have been as the Congregation of Strabane United Church. It is the light of our life, the light that shines in the darkness. We take it with us as we move forward knowing that the darkness shall never overcommit. 

All: Since then, we have such hope, we act with great boldness and move forward to live out our discipleship with integrity and grace.